Yeah, but in that case George made it a valid case with his "If you're not with me you are against me Obi-Wan" line. That was a pretty clear reference to Bush, or if it was unintentional it is pretty understandable for it to be mistaken as such. Also it was writen years after Bush gave his "if you not with us your against us" speech, so it very well could have been an intentional reference to that. I think, but I am not sure that at one point George Lucas said that Palpatine was influenced by Richard Nixon, who I believe was the president in office around the time Lucas was writing the drafts for SW. If that is true, then it seems George has writen contemporary political situations into his works before, so I see it as perfectly reasonable to assume it was an intentional Bush reference.

But I agree with you Ferris, people took it way too far in their comparisons. It has been obvious since 1999 with the Phantom Menace that Palpatine was going to take over the Republic and make it an Empire. We just didn't know how it would be done. It is stupid to read so deeply into it. I think people enjoy being able to come up with analogies, but when they do so they have to connect everything to everything. If you were to do an exegesis of Revenge of the Sith, you would want to look into Lucas' political views, where he lives and where he was when writing it, what major evens were in the news during the time he wrote it. Every writer is influenced by the world around him. Knowing these things could help determine what Lucas was putting into his work, without reading own own ideas into too badly. This would actually be very interesting to do. With most writers when you do this, many very interesting things come to light. Whenever I read a book, I like to read a little bit about the writer first, find out where he lived and during what time, then do some historical research into the place he lived and what the situation was like during his life.